Insisting on X% of Technology Y is clearly the wrong approach. Renewables enthusiasts thought that generous subsidies and penalty backed quotas would decimate emissions. Now we have increasing emissions and increasingly expensive electricity, due in part to the combination of reduced baseload, subsidies and high priced gas. If the goal is reduced emissions then penalise emissions. It's like introducing foxes to reduce rabbits then wondering what happened to the chickens.

When SA ran mostly on baseload from Pt Augusta coal and Torrens Island steam cycle gas both blackouts and price rises were infrequent. Now they're routine. Perhaps we should go back to dispatchable dominant electricity supply not one which heavily favours intermittent generation. If we had 15 GW of nuclear baseload we could meet the Paris pledge, stabilise wind and solar and set the scene for overnight charging of millions of electric cars.

Posted by Taswegian, Tuesday, 20 June 2017 9:30:39 AM

A lot of people, including politicians do not understand the implicationsof things like capacity factor.Perhaps we should try and explain it like this.You need a power system that can provide enough power to supply everything.However you need another power system to supply everything when thesun sets and the wind is not blowing.

This is very simplistic of course but I do think most politicianscould understand it.

Prof Finkel's recommendation of batteries complicates the discussionfurther because of the cost implications and how do you get enoughpower at off peak times to recharge them ?I have never seen any comment on the recharging problem.

Posted by Bazz, Tuesday, 20 June 2017 11:22:25 AM

The Lyon Group plans to start construction of the new facility at Nowingi, south of Mildura, in September.

Partner David Green said the project would ensure businesses and organisations were able to access electricity when they needed it the most.

The company has also announced plans to build a $1 billion battery and solar farm in South Australia's Riverland by year's end, as well as a smaller project on Cape York in far north Queensland.

"For the first time in Australia, and overseas actually, we're offering large energy users, generators and retailers the opportunity to come to the battery that we are developing and building, so that they can seek services from that battery, Mr Green said.

Posted by doog, Tuesday, 20 June 2017 12:48:05 PM

I understand the Riverland setup will be 330 MW PV with a 400 Mwh battery than can supply 100 MW for 4 hours. If they can build it in a few months that's vastly quicker than other types of power stations. This could work if the battery takes a few hours to fully recharge in the morning sun and is only discharged in the late afternoon or evening. Rinse and repeat.

SA electrical demand goes from about 1500 MW mild weather average to 3100 MW in heat waves. Another proposal is to save 100 MW demand by paying industrial users to cut back so that's 200 MW combined battery and demand management for a few hours. SA will still need gas and interstate power imports to get through severe events. The problem will be if all of this is not enough or something malfunctions.

Posted by Taswegian, Tuesday, 20 June 2017 2:11:48 PM

anyone with half a brain will realise that if renewables are all that the warmist faith claim them to be, then a target isn't necessary. Of course Green deceit will continue backed by Turnbull and we will continue to pay much more for power than other countries. So much for 'innovation'.

Posted by runner, Tuesday, 20 June 2017 2:17:58 PM

Typically for all (paid for comment?)coal devotees. The coal devotee just studiously avoids/ignores the nuclear option, which if rolled out as, walk away safe, molten salt, cheaper than coal, thorium. Would level the playing field to the point, where all the other carbon free alternatives would have to follow coal, fold the tent and go home.

And because these truckable reactors can be mass produced then trucked virtually wherever the demand is, for far less than any comparable coal fired plant!

Even then virtually all the costs are up front!

Why the security guard out front costs more than the fuel!

Get on U tube, look first at thorium in four minutes, then, Super Fuel, subtitled green energy.

Now the lead time could be as long as ten years for this already trialled and not found wanting tecnology?

U tube also contains a blow by blow description of the successfully trialled, without incident, Oak Ridge reactor, including design, construction and materials list!

What else do we need?

Ten years? That's how long some of our older coal fired power plants have before decommissioning by reasons of advancing old age!

As always, infrastructure delayed for a decade costs twice as much, when we get around to the roll out! And always, always, at the behest of prevaricating politicians, with a hidden agenda!? Alan B.